


The Easy Part

by CaptainSophieStark



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:07:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26774116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainSophieStark/pseuds/CaptainSophieStark
Summary: Prompt: "That's the easy part."Reader is one of the best engineers on the Enterprise and has been dating Captain Jim Kirk for a while now. A training simulation leads to a bet between the two of them to see who can do the other person's job better.Day two of Fictober on Tumblr!
Relationships: Crew of the Starship Enterprise & Reader, James T. Kirk/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	The Easy Part

"Mr. Spock, what are we reading?"

"Anomaly in the readings, Captain. Particle emissions evident for a ship, but we aren't reading one on any of our instruments."

"Mr. Chekov? Mr. Sulu? How about the two of you?"

"I'm not seeing anything, Captain," said Sulu. I spared a quick glance up at him, then turned back to my readings. Jim would be asking what I had any minute, and I wanted to be ready.

"I'm not getting anything here either, Keptin."

"Alright... Y/N?"

I shook my head, hoping something would change in the few seconds that took. Nothing did.

"I've got nothing. If I had to take a guess, I'd say someone has cloaking tech."

Jim nodded thoughtfully, turning his attention back to the viewscreen. We'd been dating for almost a year, but neither of us ever let it affect our work.

"Alright. Well, get everything ready up here and in engineering for a quick jump to warp speed. We need to be prepared for whatever this is."

I nodded once, then started tapping away at my screen. Less than a few seconds later, I was almost knocked out of my seat as something hit us, hard.

"Red alert!" yelled Jim. "Weapons at the ready, lock on to the chemical emissions signature to target! Lieutenant Uhura, try hailing them!"

"Aye Captain!" was echoed around the bridge as we all set to work. It would have looked like chaos to anyone on the outside, but we were a well-oiled machine. We were at our best when everything around us went crazy, and we had a million things to do at once.

"Uhura, any response to our attempts to hail them?"

"Nothing yet, sir."

"Chekov, have you estimated their position?"

"As well as I can sir."

"Good, then fire. Y/N, be ready to get us out of here on my mark."

"Aye sir."

I glanced up at the view screen for a few seconds to see a few explosions lighting up the darkness of space, but I quickly refocused on my work. I didn't have time for distractions.

"Photon torpedo headed straight for the bridge!"

"Shit!" yelled Jim, and then we were rocked straight out of our chairs by the simulated blast. The instruments and the viewscreen went dark, and we were all left sitting on the floor of the training room.

"Good try Captain," said Sulu.

"We'll fire earlier next time," said Jim, clearly making notes in his head. "And start trying to hail them as soon as we get signs of a ship in the area."

A few crew members clapped Jim on the shoulder as we all stood and they headed back to their duty stations. I stayed in the simulation room with Jim, walking towards him with a smile as he put his hands on his hips and sighed.

"Jim, I love you, but that was a pretty bad show," I said with a teasing smile. "I probably could've done better."

He scoffed. "Ha. I love you Y/N, but you definitely couldn't have done better than me. You're in engineering, you have no idea how much harder the command track is."

I raised an eyebrow and crossed my arms over my chest.

"Oh really? I think I feel a bet coming on..."

"What did you have in mind?"

"Let's try doing each other's jobs. Whoever does a better job—or whoever doesn't fail—wins."

Jim grinned and extended a hand. "You're on."

We shook on it, then Jim wrapped an arm around my shoulder and we headed out of the simulation room.

"What do you say we get dinner before we start this epic bet?" he asked.

"I say hell yes."

I wrapped my arm around his waist and we took our time getting to the cafeteria, making the most of some rare free time together. We went to bed fairly early, but as I drifted off in Jim's arms, all my thoughts were focused on planning for tomorrow.

I was gonna make our starship Captain lose his mind in less than an hour in engineering.

*****************

"No, Jim, you have to loosen the bolt more before you try to pull it out-"

"Don't worry, Y/N, I've got this!" I took a step back and tried to keep from laughing as Jim wrestled with the bolt. I had him trying to open one of the compartments for our backup power supply, and then I was going to make him replace the dilithium crystals. He was having a hard time already, which I found incredibly funny.

"Lassie." I turned around to see Scottie looking warily at Jim, who was still trying to pry off the lid. "All due respect to the Captain, but don't let him break my ship."

"I promise Scottie," I said, giving him a salute and a smile. "I'll make sure Jim doesn't break anything, and if he does, I'll make sure I fix it."

Scottie nodded, although he still looked a little nervous as he headed off somewhere else in engineering.

"I'm not... gonna break... anything!" Jim grunted as he yanked upward on the bolt, sending it flying through the air and almost hitting a crewman on the deck above us.

"You were saying?"

Jim just waved me off, never one to be deterred by small setbacks. I had him doing this task because those bolts were incredibly easy to replace, even if Jim broke all of them, so I wasn't worried. I leaned against the nearest wall and watched as my boyfriend fought his own ship.

Jim had no idea how to use most of the tools Scottie and I usually had to do this job, so he improvised. He got lucky, since improvisation was one of his strongest skills, but opening the compartment still took the better part of an hour, and it took a lot more physical exertion without the proper tools.

"Aha! I did it!" he said happily, looking up and grinning at me through the sweat dripping down his face. His smile was so pure and enormous that I didn't want to do anything to get rid of it, but the fact remained that he called engineering an easy job. I couldn't just let that slide, no matter how adorable my boyfriend was.

"Babe, I really hate to say this, but you just opened the compartment for the spare dilithium."

"Yeah, and?"

"That's the easy part."

Jim's face scrunched up in confusion, but I just looked pointedly at the depleted dilithium sitting in its chamber, and the heavy, delicate new crystals waiting to take their place. Jim groaned as he realized what I was looking at, slumping and trying to process the task ahead of him.

"Sorry babe. Here, let me get you the tools Scottie and I use for this part. They're pretty complicated, but maybe you'll have better luck with them, somehow."

"Ugh."

****************

Jim didn't finish replacing the dilithium until dinnertime. Scottie had been hovering nervously almost the entire time, which admittedly probably didn't help Jim's concentration, but the simple fact was dilithium required delicate handling and a solid knowledge of the material, and Jim didn't quite manage either.

He was dripping sweat as we finally left engineering, much to Scottie's relief.

"Alright, I'll admit it," he panted, leaning on me a little as we headed back to the higher decks. "Your job is incredibly hard, and I would never want to do it all the time."

I grinned. "I know. But thank you for saying it."

"Whatever. We'll see how you do tomorrow, though. Being Captain is no cakewalk either."

"Alright, I guess we'll find out." I smiled as I came to a stop outside Jim's cabin. We'd agreed that he should shower before he went anywhere near the rest of the crew, so I was dropping him off to go pick up dinner for both of us. "I'll be back in a few."

Jim hummed, pulling me closer for a soft kiss before he headed into his quarters.

"I'll see you soon."

I smiled at him as I turned and headed for the mess hall. Truthfully, I knew being Captain was one of the hardest jobs on the ship. I didn't really have the skill set for it, which was why I became an engineer instead of following the command track. But we'd started this bet and I'd proved my point about engineering, so all I could do now was hold my own as much as possible in the simulation tomorrow.

My only goal was to keep us from all being blown to pieces.

****************

"Alright, this is it. Captain Y/L/N at the helm."

I settled into the Captain's chair in the simulation room, trying not to show my nerves at Jim's words. I could do this, dammit.

"Mr. Spock, begin the simulation," said Jim. He was standing in the back of the room to observe, and that left me with Sulu, Chekov, Spock, Uhura, and Scottie as my crew. Bones had wandered up to stand in the back of the room and watch with Jim, and I caught him grinning before I turned my attention fully on the viewscreen.

"Alright guys... what are we seeing? Spock?"

"Nothing to report, Captain."

"Good... Uh... Chekov?"

"I'm not getting anything either... Keptin."

"Awesome, awesome. Sulu?"

"Smooth sailing for now, Captain."

"Excellent. Well, just let me know if anything changes, I guess." Everyone nodded, and I fidgeted a little in my seat. I really didn't know what I was doing, so I was trying to wing it, and hopefully that would work out for me. I'd seen Jim do this enough times that I had a vague idea of what to ask, and I trusted my friends to know what they were doing, if nothing else.

We sailed along like normal for a few more minutes, and everyone gave me regular updates. The longer things went well, the more nervous I became. Something was going to go wrong, and I was getting more and more stressed the longer I waited.

"Captain, sensors show a ship of unknown origin approaching."

I whirled around to glance at Uhura, then turned back to the viewscreen.

"Alright, uh... put it up, I guess."

The picture changed, and I could see a gigantic ship coming towards us. It was like nothing I'd ever seen before, and I instantly felt incredibly overwhelmed. I just had to remember that this was a simulation, and then I'd just have to do my best to handle whatever weirdness the senior officers had cooked up.

"Okay, Uhura, try hailing them," I said. Couldn't hurt to approach this the way Jim wanted to approach the last simulation, right?

"Hailing them now."

"Everybody else, ready ship's phasers."

"Aye, Captain."

"Captain, they've responded to our attempts at contact. They want to talk." I turned around to look at Uhura, not even bothering to hide the panic in my eyes. She just gave me a shrug, which I returned, and then I faced foward again.

"Alright, what the hell? Put them onscreen."

Years of Starfleet training, and I'd still never seen anything like the creature onscreen. Jim and Bones had gotten really creative when they came up with this scenario.

"We are the Thugins," said the thing onscreen. "Who are you?"

"I am Y/N- uh, Captain Y/N Y/L/N of the Starship Enterprise, on a five year mission for Starfleet, in the name of the United Federation of Planets." I paused, honestly not sure what to say next. "Uh... what are you doing out here?"

I heard Jim snort from behind me, and I turned to shoot him a quick glare. He just smiled that ridiculous smile back at me, so I rolled my eyes. His smile was one of my favorite things about him, and it's not like he didn't deserve to laugh a little after his experience in engineering yesterday.

"We are here to conquer all inferior civilizations," said the guy on the screen, ripping my attention away from my boyfriend. "You will be the first of many of our victories."

"Whoa, wait, hold on. You don't have to attack us! We can work together, and make each other stronger that way!" I said, trying to stop any of that attack talk.

"Nice try, puny human. Death to all who are not Thugin."

The viewscreen blinked out, and I was left sitting there, stunned.

"Shields up, Captain?" asked Sulu.

"Yes! Yes, thank you, shields up! Begin firing phasers, ready photon torpedos. Get ready to get us out of here Scottie and Sulu."

"Aye, Captain!" everyone chorused. I smiled, then watched the flurry of activity around me. It felt weird to be in charge of the activity, instead of being part of it.

"Should we go to red alert, Captain?" suggested Chekov.

"Shit! Yeah, go to red alert."

"We have missiles incoming!" Uhura called out.

"Brace for impact!"

I barely had time to get the words out before the simulation bridge was shaking like an earth quake, and I was fighting to stay in my chair. We landed a few hits on them with our phasers, but another round of advanced torpedos knocked us right out of the simulation.

"Dammit!" I yelled. "What the hell am I supposed to do with that? That guy didn't want to talk at all, and their weapons were stupidly advanced!"

"It was a good try, Y/N," said Uhura, coming to put a hand on my shoulder.

"Yes, although if you'll remember, we have been in a similar situation when we encountered-"

"Spock. Please. I appreciate it, but I don't need the reminder."

Spock looked at me for a second, then gave me a rare smile.

"Of course. Captain."

He and the rest of the crew followed Spock's lead and headed off the bridge after a few kind words to me. Finally, it was just me and Jim in the empty simulation room.

"Alright, fine. Your job is super hard, and I definitely can't do it better than you," I said, smiling as I walked over to my boyfriend.

"Babe, I hate to tell you this, but... that was the easy part."

"What?" I yelled, unable to stop myself from flailing my arms and raising my voice in outrage. "That was the easy part? What the hell is the hard part Jim?"

Jim held up his hands in surrender and almost doubled over from laughing at my reaction.

"I was kidding! I was kidding, I promise. It doesn't get much harder than life and death decisions for the crew."

"Thank God," I said, rolling my eyes. "Now come on, I need to do something to relax after that ridiculous simulation. Classical television in your room?"

"Sounds perfect to me." Jim kissed my temple and wrapped an arm around my shoulders, and the two of us headed off through the ship. I loved him, but I would never ever want to be him.

I preferred my job in engineering, where I only had to interact with friends and coworkers, and not hostile enemies trying to kill us all. Even Scottie before his morning coffee wasn't that bad.


End file.
